Edge Of Freedom
by The Liar Of Truth
Summary: In the aftermath of the Mission City event, Sam struggles with himself and his mind while the Autobots tries to adapt to a world that never wanted nor needed them. They should have realised they weren't the only players in the game. OC/M.E.C.H/N.E.S.T/Prime


Edge of Freedom

Chapter 1: Dreams are Dangerous

Something warm hit Sam's face, before slowly sliding down his cheek.

The boy automatically lifted his hand to wipe his cheek, before slowly lowering his hand to his side again, his eyes not once wavering from the crimson and orange sunset he was staring at.

_Drip._

Something warm landed on Sam's face again, and he quickly wiped his face with the back of his hand, slightly annoyed, though when he was about to lower his hand again a flash of crimson against peach caught his eyes.

He froze, before slowly turning his head while lifting his hand upwards, mouth suddenly feeling dry.

Blood.

There was blood on his hand- on his face.

He quickly started scrubbing his face, frightened at the sudden appearance of blood, but when he examined his hands again there was no evidence that either his face or his hand was bleeding.

So where had the blood come from?

_Drip. Drip._

His stomach rolled unpleasantly as the teenager slowly lifted his head to the orange sky.

It was starting to rain heavier, more and more droplets falling on the surface of his skin and running down his body. Several time Sam had to blink quickly when the warm droplets that landed on or near his eyes irritated his eyes, and- the longer it rained, Sam could gradually smell the metallic coopery scent that came with blood.

Swallowing nervously, Sam turned his head back to where he was looking at the blood red sunset, before nervously raising his arms.

They were dyed crimson.

His whole body had turned red. Every single exposed surface of his body was already drenched in the damning colour, and Sam could feel the liquid rolling down his body. It was on his neck, in his hair, on his skin, _between his nails_.

The teenage boy paused for a moment, trying to lick his lips nervously only to spit when all he could taste was blood, before taking another look at his nails. Indeed, there was blood coating his nails, as well as skin flakes.

His eyes traveled up the length of his arms nervously, before feeling bile rise up in his throat when he realised that- in an attempt to try and get rid of the blood on his body, he had scratched his arms so deeply it was bleeding on its own.

By that time, the rain of blood had turned into a downpour, and it was rapidly rising. It had already reached his ankles.

The boy tried to scream. He did. But nothing came out of his mouth. He couldn't even move. All he could do was stare as the ruby coloured liquid continued rising higher and higher, until it would eventually threaten to engulf him and swallow him whole, drowning him the blood of the victims of the Mission City event and their family-

Sam blinked, and for a heartbeat all he could see his own terrified reflection peering back at him on the surface of the blood, before it suddenly transformed into another being.

Because the only word to describe the creature in Sam's reflection can only be 'being'.

It was terrifying to look at. The creature looked vaguely humanoid, but its skin was grey and wrinkled, while it's iris and pupil was pure and unnaturally white. There wasn't even any marking to differentiate sclera and iris. It had no nose or mouth and wore no clothes, but it's body- despite the wrinkled skin, was flat and unmarked. It was as though it was looking at a piece of two-dimensional drawing.

Sam couldn't tear his eyes from it.

Then- despite it's lack of mouth- it spoke.

"_Your fault. Their death, its all your fault. If you had never brought the aliens to Mission City, they would no have died. They had no reason to die. Their own crime was that they were there on the battlefield as liabilities. It's all your fault. And you need to pay."_

Right before Sam's eyes, the creature's skin started falling off, revealing blood that was black like oil and muscles and organs that were writhing on their own. The teenager wanted to vomit. He wanted to scream and run away, to close his eyes and hide, but his body was paralyzed and his something forced him to continue looking at the creature morphing.

The muscles and organs started tearing off from the body too, a high-pitched screaming noise emitting from it, but instead of a white skeleton beneath it, Sam could only stare in fascinated horror as the body tore off only to reveal a silver metal exoskeleton that gleamed under an unknown light source. White eyes turned red- a bright piercing red that reminded Sam too much of the Decepticons that had tried to kill him, and at the spot where the mouth should be there were savage looking fangs instead.

It's mouth twisted into a grotesque looking smile, and it hissed at the paralyzed teenager.

"YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID!"

The creature burst out of Sam's reflection, lunging upwards towards him with claws extended, and right as it was about to sink straight into Sam's tender neck-

"SAM!" There was a loud roar, before something slapped Sam across the face, hard.

Sam screamed as he was suddenly jerked up from his sleep, eyes slamming open in horror as his hands flew straight to his neck, absolutely convinced that he would find blood gushing out from it.

"Sam!" The voice yelled, irritation and concern colouring the tone. "Wake up!"

Reality was slowly coming back to the teenage boy and he quickly swallowed a heaving breath, desperately trying to stop screaming. His whole body was coated with sweat, and his muscles were all clenched up from the paralytic nightmare. His throat was starting to feel a little hoarse from all the screaming he did, but that was the least of his concern.

A face swam in front of his vision, and the teenager realised that he was actually lying on his back on the bed. His uncle Kelvin was staring worriedly down at him, pressing one hand against the boy's forehead, while the whole Corner family- the mother and their two daughter- was standing by the door staring at him with fear.

"Sam, are you awake, can you hear me?"

Sam's attention snapped back to his uncle's, before he nodded slowly.

"Y-yes. I- what happened?" His voice was raspy and several pitch lower than normal, a result of the constant screaming.

"Another nightmare." His uncle said gruffly, taking his hand off Sam's forehead. "I was shaking you for a good few minutes and you refused to wake up. I was about to turn to cold water."

Sam chuckled in a low tone that sounded flat more than anything, before whispering, "Thanks…I'm fine now though. Sorry if I scared you."

He made a move as though he was going back to sleep even though everyone knew he wasn't going to, and Kelvin exchanged a look with his wife.

"Listen…Sam. When Judy asked me if you could live with us for the week, I didn't really know what to expect. You are a good kid Sam, but…" His face was apologetic but determined. "I can't keep doing this. The nightmares you're having…it's not just affecting your health, but the health of my family too. The girls are barely sleeping properly either- they can hear you trashing about in your sleep…and your screaming…"

Sam's face twisted. He couldn't control his nightmares, no matter how much he tried.

"Sorry, Sam, but I think you should go back to your parents."

The boy nod slowly, without kicking up a fuss, and his uncle looked relief.

"I'll help you pack tomorrow-"

"No need…" Sam whispered, licking his dry lips. "I will do it myself. Thank you for everything."

His uncle hesitated for a second, before nodding. He ushered his family out of the door, and closed it behind him.

Sam huddled deeper into his blankets, ignoring the fact that he was already burning up, and resolutely kept his eyes open for the rest of the night.

* * *

Life had been easy for Sam after the battle. As the US scrambled to try and figure out what to do with their extraterrestrial 'visitors', Sam's life had proceeded on as per normal. Despite having singled handedly saved the world- a fact that Keller had personally explained to his parents, he was still required to go to school, study, and pretend that he hadn't just had a massive smack down with the dark lord of Cybertron.

It helped that Mikaela was by his side, helping him as he struggled through his mundane life, and that Bumblebee remained his guardian. The Autobots, attempting to try and find their place in the new planet, had remained undercover and still living sporadically around the small town. Occasionally, though, one of them would venture all the way to Mission City, watching the citizens of the place rebuild their home in the wake of the devastation wrought by their battle with the Decepticons. Even the two new Autobots that had received Optimus's message and ventured to Earth, Bluestreak and Sideswipe, had gone to Mission City at least once to pay their respect. It was the place Jazz had fallen, after all.

The citizens of Mission City were all paid off and threatened to keep what they saw under wraps, while Keller had fed the world a ton of bullshit about a new military exercise and how it had gone desperately wrong. They had paid their primary defense contractor, KING Industry, to agree with them that it was one of their experiments that had malfunction during the practice and destroyed nearly half the city.

There were only occasional spotting of Decepticons, mostly of Barricade who joined the battle too late and fled before the Autobots could catch up with him, and Blackout who- despite being badly damaged- had actually survive the assault Lennox's team inflicted on him and managed to crawl out of his watery grave. Both Barricade and Blackout showed no interest in restarting the fight with the Autobots, Barricade choosing to remain in Mission City while Blackout joining his drone in Qatar. While he had been opposed, Optimus had opted to leave the two of them alone until a time when…_if_ they showed signs of aggression or destruction.

Even after all that he had gone through; Optimus was still a strong believer in second chances.

But that wasn't Sam's concern. All he cared about was that his car was not only one of the sleekest ride in the country but also a transforming robot, he was dating the most gorgeous girl he have ever known, and that he had several gigantic transforming aliens living in his backyard.

Life may be weird, but it was good, and that was all Sam cared about.

Until, eight months after the fight, the US finally launched their plans for the future of the Autobots into action.

Operation NEST.

That was when Sam's personalised hell started.

On the fifth of April, year two thousand and eight, all the Autobots but Bumblebee were called away permanently. To where Sam knows not, but Ratchet had relented briefly and told him that NEST would be an organization meant to bridge the two world together, and to protect the citizens of Earth from any possible aliens attack, Decepticons or not.

Sam had been gloomy to see them go, having created such tight bonds with all of them, and for the first few nights after their departure he had refused to sleep in his room, instead curled up in the driver seat of Bumblebee, seeking comfort from his silent guardian.

It was only on the third night when they left, though, that Sam had finally given in under his parent's unrelenting urges to sleep properly and returned to his bed to sleep. Without the Autobots surrounding him, Sam's defenses crumbled, and his own demons began to rise up.

The first weeks he dreamt of Mission City, and the battle that changed his life.

Sam dreamt that he was too slow, that he was too weak to hide the Allspark from Megatron. His mind tormented him with his fears that he was caught by Megatron, or tortured by Barricade again.

This went on for a few weeks, his subconscious twisting the battle into different scenarios that might have happened, failures on his parts that might have resulted in Megatron taking over the world. It was until Sam's mind exhausted all avenues of possible failing of Sam during that day that his dreams changed. Once he cleaned that idea out of his system and accepted that fact that he did _not_ fail, his mind was opened to other things.

Like that fact that many people- many innocent _humans_ died that day.

* * *

"Sam!" Judy cried out when she saw her son standing on the porch looking drained and tired, with bags under his eyes. Kelvin, Judy's younger brother, had drove Sam all the way from his house back to the teen's home before dropping him off at the gates, politely declining Sam's tired invitation to come in for coffee before going home. Witwicky was showing signs of sleep deprivation, and his mother was visibly upset at her son's state.

"Hi, mom." Sam greeted, hugging his mother when she drew him into bone-crushing hug, blabbering about her 'little Sammy'. "I missed you too."

"Did it help, your trip to Kelvin's home?" Judy asked when she finally took a step back to examine her son again. Sam hesitate in reply her, busying himself with retrieving his bag from where it lay beside his feet, before finally muttering "A little, I guess."

Judy started talking again as the both of them began to move into the house, fussing about how tired and skinny he had gotten, but Sam's exhausted mind couldn't catch up with her. He simply let her do what she needed to do to feel better about his situation, before he finally turned to her and said "Mom, I love you to death and I missed you too, but I really just want to rest for now, would that be okay?"

"Of course," Judy cooed worriedly, "I'll get you some food for when you wake up, okay?" Sam nod as he gave her a weary smile as he hugged her again, another sign of his mental state being exhausted. Sam wouldn't normally hug his mother excessively, claiming that it wasn't 'manly' to do so. He entered the room again, closing the door with excessive amount of force before slumping straight on his bed.

He wanted to sleep, dear Lord he wanted to so badly, but every time he closed his eyes all he would see was the blood and the faceless bodies coming at him and the accusing scream and the-

A high-pitched electronic whining sound shook Sam from his slump, and despite his tiredness his eyes brighten with joy recognising the sound. Jumping out of bed and hurling himself towards the windows, he stuck his head down and beamed when he saw his bright yellow guardian waiting for him.

"Be down in a sec!" Sam called out; knowing Bumblebee could hear him and the Camaro revved his engines impatiently, missing his charge already.

Bumblebee had wanted to go with Sam when Judy and Ron recommended their son to stay with Judy's brother for a while, convinced that time away from Tranquility would help with Sam and his nightmares, but Ron had been adamant about Sam spending some time alone.

Bumblebee had initially been extremely worried that Barricade might decide to make a move against the boy seeing how it's the first he had gone anywhere outside of Tranquility without his guardian, and Sam had been reluctant to leave Mikaela and Bumblebee, but when the nightmares got worse and even his girlfriend worriedly insisted that he should get out for awhile, Sam had then conceded. It didn't exactly work though, seeing how the nightmares were still plaguing him. In fact, they seem to have gotten worse when he wasn't with Bumblebee.

All his fears and worries flew out of his mind though, when Sam ran down the steps and charged out of the door towards his guardian. Bumblebee obligingly swung the door open so Sam could slip in easily, and instantly emitted several electronic chirps and whines as Sam shut the door and comfortably curled up into the driver's seat.

"I missed you, Bee," Sam said blissfully as he closed his eyes, feeling his guardian's presence surrounding him, protecting him. Already, he could feel himself drifting into sleep, knowing the nightmares would be kept at bay for the brief times he's around the scout. "I missed you…"

"_I…missed…you too."_ Bumblebee projected from the radio, surfing the different frequencies to put together bits and parts of his greeting. Sam smiled sleepily, getting drowsier by the seconds, and it wasn't before long that he drifted to a dreamless sleep.

"_Welcome…home._"

* * *

All recognised characters do not belong to me. Review are much appreciated!


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